A White House Leak Almost Had The Libyan Prime Minister Killed

Kidnapped Libyan Prime Minister Pays The Price For An Obama Leak -- Marc A. Thiessen, Washington Post

Leaks have consequences. Just ask Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan, who was kidnapped in retaliation for allowing the United States to carry out a special operations raid in Tripoli that captured a senior al-Qaeda leader, Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai, known as Abu Anas al-Libi.

How did the kidnappers know that the prime minister had approved the raid? After all, his government denied any prior knowledge of the U.S. action. Simple: The Obama administration told them. A front-page story in the New York Times, “U.S. Officials Say Libya Approved Commando Raids,” reported that “After months of lobbying by American officials, the Libyans consented ‘some time ago’ — weeks or perhaps even months — to the United States operations.” The article, which cites “more than half a dozen American diplomatic, military, law enforcement, intelligence and other administration officials” as sources, notes that “The Libyans’ consent marks a significant step forward for the Obama administration, which has been criticized by Congressional Republicans for moving too slowly to apprehend the Benghazi suspects.”

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My Comment: The Libyan government certainly did not want it known publicly that they had given permission to the U.S. to conduct this Special Forces mission .... but the White House could not help themselves. This leak also resulted in the second target .... the man that everyone assumes is responsible for the Benghazi U.S. consulate attack .... to quickly go into hiding. Marc A. Thiessen's last paragraph in his opinion piece sums all of this up perfectly ....

.... Even when this administration gets something right, it can’t seem to get it right. After years of destroying vital treasure troves of intelligence with drones, Obama finally changed course and captured a high-value target alive. And more than a year after the Benghazi attacks, the administration finally secured Libya’s consent to let us bring the perpetrators to justice. Yet even in success, this administration found a way to screw things up — all because, in the immortal words of former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, they can’t seem to “shut the f*** up.”